


Science Never Sleeps, But It's Time for a Freakin' Nap

by Meilan_Firaga



Category: Ant-Man (Movies), Captain America (Movies), Doctor Strange (2016), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies), Venom (Movie 2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Crack, Crack, Crack Crossover, Fluff and Crack, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Humor, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-02
Updated: 2019-07-06
Packaged: 2019-12-30 18:10:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18320564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meilan_Firaga/pseuds/Meilan_Firaga
Summary: In retrospect, she never should have accepted a taser that was upgraded just one short workbench away from where Tony, Jane, and Doctor Neat Goatee were experimenting with time and space. Darcy just wanted an upgrade to her favored sidearm, but sometimes it's just not that easy.





	1. It Never Goes Smooth

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 3rd Annual Darcyland Crack Challenge.
> 
> Day 01 Prompt: Taser Mishaps

In retrospect, she never should have accepted a taser that was upgraded just one short workbench away from where Tony, Jane, and Doctor Neat Goatee were experimenting with time and space. Record at the Tower was an even 50/50 as to whether the result of shared lab space was amazing technological advances or just monumental stupidity. She was aware of those statistics. She’d done the math and sent the memos herself. She knew better.

Still, she was just so excited for the upgrade. She’d been using her standard, off-the-rack edition since the early days of college. Something better hadn’t exactly been affordable for the longest time, and when Tony found out what she was packing… For all his posturing, Tony Stark really was a giving kind of guy. He took care of his friends, and that apparently included the girl who got the coffee and was willing to sneak him a shot of tequila here and there when there were too many people-dealing meetings in one day. He didn’t like that Darcy was walking about with what he considered to be a subpar weapon. He’d shown her plans and ideas that practically had her drooling.  _ Nobody _ was going to screw with her when she was carrying her new taser. 

Well, they wouldn’t screw with her twice.

So, it was with no small amount of glee that she lifted the new taser from Tony’s workbench while the scientists and wizard were distracted with some sort of artifact. It was surrounded by plenty of little gizmos and whirligigs—some of them shiny and new like everything else that Tony made in house while others looked ancient. That really should have been a clue, a warning, some kind of sign. All she could really blame it on was the insanity of excitement.

There was a training dummy in one corner of the lab hooked up to a myriad of sensors. It was a kind of dummy that had been designed specifically to take damage from heroes in training and weapons in development. The sensors could measure everything from electrical output to the force behind physical blows. Thor had managed to fry about twelve of them, and Steve alone had punched another six so hard they flew off their bases and ripped out all kinds of wiring. Still, it was a great means of measuring the potential of weaponry. Darcy had fired all kinds of things at it over the months she and Jane had been in the tower. It was training, really, for the moment when she’d get to fire her new and improved Senorita Shocky.

There were still heated arguments going when she stepped up to the firing line and squared her shoulders. Jane was yelling something about bridges not meshing properly with the space-time continuum when she raised the taser to shoulder height. Time stretched out for a long moment while she lined up her shot, but the cacophony behind her stalled completely. Three voices shouted at once when her finger tightened against the trigger.

“Wait!”

“Darcy!”

“NO!”

The taser fired, prongs arcing across to the dummy. Before they even connected everything went black.


	2. Time Travel? Why Not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the 3rd Annual Darcyland Crack Challenge.
> 
> Day 02 Prompt: An unexplainable predicament to explain

When the blackness cleared and her head stopped spinning, Darcy was no longer in the brightly lit lab at the tower. She was flat on her back on the cold, uncomfortable ground. The world around her was dark and dank. Far above she saw what looked to be some kind of grate. Something was dripping off in the distance. Murmurs rose up around her. Faces began to fill her vision as they circled about to look down at her. Familiar faces. Faces that she’d only ever seen in museums and history books.

“One of you boys pray for a hooker?” the cheery voice of Dum Dum Dugan asked from directly above her head. His mustache wobbled with laughter, but his eyes were kind. “You alright down there, girlie?”

With a pained groan, she pushed herself up to a sitting position, the traitorous taser clutched tight in one hand. “I think I’m hallucinating famous war heroes,” she quipped in response, “but other than that I’m just dandy.”

“Famous? War heroes?” Dugan wasn’t the only one to bark out a laugh. “Must have hit that noggin of yours pretty hard if you think anyone in this dump is heroic or famous.”

Upright and able to get a good look around, Darcy was pretty sure she wasn’t hallucinating. She’d listened to Captain Sexy-pants tell stories about the war. His memory was pretty sharp for a guy in his nineties. Everything she was seeing was right on par with his description of the facility he’d liberated Bucky from when his work for the war effort really got started. Either she was out cold in the medical bay at the tower having some  _ wild _ dreams or her taser had tossed her back in time. 

Tony Stark’s ass was hers when she got home.

“You pretty much appeared in a weird cloud of lightning,” Jim Morita explained from where he’d just crouched down by her elbow.  “Is this some new nazi tech or are you the rescue party?” He looked her over and Darcy was suddenly very conscious of the fact that her lab attire for the day included day-glo pink leggings, a black v-neck t-shirt she’d pilfered from the laundry that probably belonged to one of the super soldiers for all that it completely dwarfed her, and a worn oversized cardigan she’d crocheted herself and frequently patched with whatever bits of yarn or fabric she had to hand. Her hair was tied in sloppy pigtails, and her glasses were the big purple frames she wore on days when vision was more important than cuteness. She refused to look at her feet and the bearclaw slippers she was pretty sure were covering them.

“Sad to say that I’m neither, my dude.” She pushed her feet against the floor until she came to stand in the middle of the circle of men. Of course they were all taller than her. Thanks, history, she thought, but I really didn’t need the confirmation. “I wish I had a good explanation, but trust me when I say that it's pretty nonsensical.” She rolled her shoulders and checked the taser. It was still showing a full charge. Excellent.

“No offense, but this really ain’t the place for a lady.” Dugan again, right beside her and purposefully placing himself between her and the guards she’d just spotted outside of their cage. It was sweet, really.

“Totally in agreement, man,” she confirmed, nodding at him. “Thing is, though, that I think I need to fire this baby again—” she wave the taser for emphasis, “ — in order to get out. In case it goes wrong I’d rather not shoot any of you.” 

Dum Dum followed her pointed nod over his shoulders and let out a genuine, booming laugh. It drew the attention of the guards, and they started to make their way towards the cage. “Well, that’s mighty kind of you. I’ll give you a clear shot as soon as they get here.”

Darcy’s heart warmed. She was going to have to ask Steve to talk about them all more. “Anybody know the date?” It was whispered at her back and she did a quick calculation. She lifted the taser, aiming straight at Dum Dum’s sternum. “Chin up, boys. If my history books were right the cavalry’s just a couple days away.” 

The guards shouted something in German. Dum Dum stepped to one side. Before the guards could process their shock, Darcy pulled the trigger and fell back into darkness.


	3. Totally New BFFs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the 3rd Annual Darcyland Crack Challenge.
> 
> Day 03 Prompt: Stuck In An Air Vent
> 
> I swear, these chapters are only meant to be 500 to 750 words long. This one grabbed me by the hand and took off running, dammit.

Size H boobs were not made to fit inside standard ventilation systems. Neither, for that matter, were totally underpaid lab assistants that said boobs might be attached to. However you looked at it, the next place Darcy found herself when the woozy fog she’d decided to call hashtag taser haze cleared was less than ideal. She was surrounded on all sides by the silvery metal of some kind of air duct. To make matters worse, the duct was just small enough that her arms were pinned to her side. Her hand was still clenched around the taser, but she had no way of knowing where it was pointed so she could fire. If she let it go she might be able to wiggle a hand up in front of her face, but that was going to do her pretty much no good with the taser still trapped against her hip.

So, Darcy settled down to ponder ways to improve her situation. Or wait for the situation to improve of its own volition. Or, if she were looking to be honest, to finally cry the hot tears of frustration she’d held back out of sheer will when she’d found herself surrounded by heroes of the past. Brave sarcasm in the face of danger was all well and good, but there was no one to see her just then and she  _ wanted to go home _ . It was supposed to be a moderately calm lab day with pjs and hot cocoa, not whatever this mess was. She hoped that the vent she was stuck in wasn’t part of a bad guy lair because there was nothing quiet or ladylike about the sobs that hiccupped out from her throat. She laid her head down against the metal beneath her and cried until she didn’t have any tears left. 

“Bad day?”

She jumped so hard at the sudden unfamiliar voice that the back of her skull cracked against the metal above. It rumbled a bit like thunder, but thankfully didn’t hurt too much. Somehow, a dude had crawled right up in front of her without her noticing. He had both of his arms in front of him, though from the look of things he didn’t have the faintest prayer of getting them back down to his sides. Between them was a spacey looking helmet that looked weirdly bug-like. 

“Please don’t scream,” he continued before she could speak. “There aren’t a whole lot of people in the building, but since I don’t think either of us are really supposed to be here screaming probably wouldn’t end well.” He moved like he was going to hold out a hand to shake before seeming to think better of it, hazel eyes wide and friendly. “So. I’m Scott Lang. Uh, Ant-Man.”

“Darcy Lewis.” The polite response came out before she really thought about it, years of good manners kicking in. She sniffed hard, willing her nose to stop running and her eyes to get a little less puffy.

“Hi, Darcy.” Scott smiled, giving her a look that said he understood crying while stuck in a vent completely. “Wanna talk about it?”

She knew the name Ant-Man, of course. Sam hated talking about him for some reason, but everyone at the tower knew about the guy on the west coast who could shrink to the size of a bug. It might have been the familiarity of being around a superhuman when most of her life was spend managing superhumans and geniuses, but she found herself spilling the whole sordid story, flipping from anger back to sobs and back to anger again as she explained how she’d just been so damn excited for her new taser and then she’d ended up jumping through time and space. She wrapped it up with a harsh assessment of her current situation and taught him a whole string of filthy curses while explaining exactly how she felt about not being able to see to fire the taser and get out of the damn vent.

“Hang on,” Scott told her. He placed the helmet back on his head. When he spoke again his voice came out a bit modular. “Let’s see if I can do something about that part at least.”

With the push of a button on his hand, he disappeared. After blinking for a second Darcy spotted a tiny figure running to one side of the vent and slipping between some of the metal plating. A few seconds later the figure reappeared, ran a short distance away, and did some sort of baseball slide before growing back to full person size. He hadn’t gotten his hands in front of him this time, so Scott mostly looked like a weird helmeted sardine packed too tightly in a can.

“Yeah, I can definitely do something about the tight fit,” he said in that weird robot voice. “There should be just enough space around the vent. Do me a favor and don’t move a single millimeter until it’s fixed. I’m not sure what would happen if I hit you, so let’s just avoid that mess.”

He shrank down again before she could respond. Darcy held her breath, but she didn’t have to wait long. Tiny Scott threw something nearly microscopic at the vent itself and suddenly she was surrounded by open space. Her whole body fell about a foot down to rest against the bottom again, but that one section of the vent had grown so much in all directions that she twisted herself into a sitting position without any trouble. 

“That was incredible!” She hiccupped through some slightly hysterical laughter when he grew up beside her and took the helmet back off. “I don’t know why Falcon gets so squirrelly about you.”

Scott fidgeted. “I, uh, might have very recently given him reason to be.” He looked around the expanded section of vent shaft as if he expected to see someone else there and ready to listen in on their conversation. “Can you keep a secret?”

“Probably not, man. I live in the tower with all of them.”

“Well, I’m going to tell you anyway because nobody lets me brag: I kinda kicked his butt and stole something from the upstate facility.”

That certainly explained some things. “Please tell me you did at least part of that while being super tiny.”

“Totally,” Scott confirmed with a vigorous nod. 

“Dude, you have just given me  _ the best _ bit of ammunition next time he’s busting my butt with his psychotherapy schtick.”

“Always happy to help.” He pointed at the taser she now had loosely in her lap. “Can I see that thing for a second?”

Darcy swallowed, nervous to let go of what might be her only way home, but, she reasoned, at least she knew he wasn’t a bad guy. “Just be careful,” she insisted as she handed it over.

Turning the taser carefully in his hands, Scott examined every display and button while being sure not to push anything. After about ten minutes he held it back out to her. “I think you might have a good chance of going back to your time when you use up the final charge.”

“Really!?” she grabbed the weapon back, tilting it so they could both see the battery display.

“Yeah.” He pointed at the row of tiny lights on the display. Two of them were out while the rest remained aglow. “I think each charge nets you one hop through time and space. The last one there is a different color than the rest, so it stands to reason that it would be a return to the charging station, which I’m betting is the lab.”

He kept talking, explaining how her taser worked from an engineering position, but Darcy had stopped listening. There were only ten little lights including the two that were already out and then one Scott thought would take her home. Sure, she’d be at the skipping from one time and place to another for a while in order to make the jumps while having time to catch her breath, but that wasn’t so bad if she only had to do it ten times. “Scott, you are without a doubt the best.”

“Well, of course,” Scott preened, favoring her with a wink. “Now, I’m not going to tell anyone about this. There’s the whole space time continuum to worry about. I don’t wanna be the butterfly effect.”

“Not sure how that works, but it’s probably a good idea.” Darcy agreed amiably. She rolled her head on her shoulders and swiped the back of one hand across her nose. “I think I better start jumping about if I want to get home and smack me some scientists.” She threw an arm over his shoulders and squeezed him in a companionable hug. “Come find me at the tower in a couple of years, okay? We’ll hang out and get pizza.”

“If she’s not too cool to hang with me by then I’ll probably bring my kid. She’s cool. Definitely not a narc.”

Darcy laughed, twisting to aim the taser down the empty ventilation shaft. “I can’t wait. Later, new bestie!”


	4. What's a Little Possession Between Friends?

Darcy was still giddy from Scott’s revelation about the taser’s charges when she found herself leaning against the sterile white walls of a hospital MRI theater. She was tucked between the MRI machine and the wall, her butt fitting snugly in the corner of the room. It wouldn’t even be a dozen jumps before she could punch Tony in the face, tell Wong what Strange had done so he’d get a month of lectures, and put Jane to bed to think about what she’d done. Her Janey was definitely sleep deprived if she’d been willing to use something of Darcy’s as experimental fodder. As she sat there, smiling brightly, the MRI machine hummed to life. Almost immediately she covered her ears, the taser falling to the floor, as an inhuman screech mixed with a man’s scream split the air. She curled up tight against the wall, trying to block out as much of the noise as she could manage.

As suddenly as the screaming started it stopped. If it had happened to anyone else she might have laughed it off, even with her wild experiences. Still, she had to blink a few times before she convinced herself that yes, she actually had just watched what looked to be a sentient pile of goo fly out of a man’s back and smack wetly against the wall. She didn’t hear the man scrambling out of the room or the doors whooshing shut, too preoccupied with the shiny black blob streaking down the wall toward her. 

Tendrils oozed around her slipper and  _ melted _ into the skin of her leg. The entire creature disappeared into her body in a matter of seconds. She was so shocked, so unbelievably terrified, that Darcy never even had the breath to scream before she could no longer control any of her limbs.

_ I will not kill you. _

The voice came from within her mind, rough and gravely. Her breath was coming in short pants, but she couldn’t muster the strength to use her voice. Her overactive imagination began to concoct all many of 80s sci-fi movie situations the ooze could put her through.

_ None of that is interesting. _ The voice pinged through her brain, bouncing off her recent memories.  _ You’re lost. I am lost. _

She didn’t find her voice, but she did find a way to focus her thoughts into some sort of conversation. “I think lost might be an understatement for what you are, buddy.”

_ You have a frantic mind, like Eddie’s. _

“Is Eddie the dude you made scream so bad a few minutes ago?”

_ I did not do that to him! _ Her head ached from the ferocity of its statement.  _ I can fix his body.  _ Suddenly, its tone shifted from angry to almost sheepish.  _ I just have to make him listen. _

“I don’t think jumping ship to me is going to get him to listen.” She could work with a couple’s spat. Maybe talk him into leaving her so she could grab the taser and gtfo.

_ I know you’re thoughts. _ It told her.  _ I don’t want to take you. I want to be back in Eddie, but I can’t survive very long without a host. _

The oddest sensation prickled across Darcy’s mind. It was like she could sense the creature’s emotions. It was strange, because it didn’t think entirely like a human, but she could muddle through well enough. It was lonely, and familiar with being lonely, but it had recently found companionship with this Eddie. Its recent memories were all of a guy that was super hot in a scruffy, bumbling kind of way. It—Venom, apparently—had the beginnings of affection for him, but his species wasn’t familiar with that kind of thought process so it was all different kinds of confused.  It was pretty sweet, actually.

“Aw, honey.” She poured as much sympathy toward him as she could muster. “You’ve had it rough. I think you’ve got a good chance of getting your boy back, though.”

_ He is in danger, and he doesn’t believe it. _ Darcy watched as her hands moved without her telling them to. Her fingers clenched into fists, which always looked ridiculous to her eyes. She was not made for fighting.  _ Your body is weak, but I can make it stronger while you help me get to Eddie. _

Oh no. Not the plan. “As much as I’d love to help, my dude, I think you should find another ride for this one. I don’t even know what year it is, and you really don’t want the kind of attention it would gather if I got caught on camera doing something hero-like with you.” She dredged up memories of Thor and the others at their most overprotective, and Venom seemed to take that under advisement. Her hands stopped moving under its control, and she found she was able to move her eyes on her own again. She zeroed in on a vent on the ceiling.

_ I could use that, yes? _

“Yeah, buddy, I think you could. There’s usually tons of people in hospitals.” Feeling began to return to Darcy’s body as she watched Venom begin to slink out of her outstretched hand toward the wall. As he left she felt a small pang of loss, and her eyes caught on one of the beaded bracelets she’d put on that morning. Sometimes when Jane went on long science benders she would sit and piece together gaudy little bangles from bead she collected everywhere they went. She had boxes full of them and half a dozen on her wrist. “Hey, can you carry things in your slime form?” 

Venom paused for a second, and she could sense him looking through her mind. He didn’t say anything more, but when he fully separated from her body one of the bracelets was gone. Venom slithered up the wall and across the ceiling, disappearing into the vent in record time. The whole exchange had probably only taken seconds, but in that time she’d blocked out everything going on around her. The doors to the MRI theater whooshed open, panicked voices reaching her ears. She grabbed for the taser blindly and fired, whooshing away into darkness.


End file.
